(Footnote.  Haematopus picatus, described in the Appendix to Captain King’s work on Australia.)

HEAD OF COLLIER BAY.

The view from this station, blighted our hopes of finding an opening leading into the interior from Collier Bay, for we could trace the land all round the head of it, forming high ranges without a single break.  This malapropos discovery, materially diminished the pleasure we had before experienced, on first seeing a new part of the continent.  About twenty miles west from where we stood, were a group of islands, which I was able to identify as those seen from Bathurst Island, near the eastern entrance point of King’s Sound; they appeared to extend about ten miles in a northerly direction, from the western point of Collier Bay.

AN EAGLE SHOT.

Whilst using the theodolite, we came within the searching glance of a hungry eagle, which soaring over our heads for some time, at length swooped within range of our guns, when he paid for his curiosity with the loss of his life.  This was the only rapacious bird we saw in Collier Bay, and appears to be of the species Falco leucogaster Latham.* On examination, the stomach contained fish and part of a small snake, and from what I have since observed this bird frequents the sea coast.  Their nests are very large, built on bare spots in the shape of a pyramid; some of them measuring three feet in diameter, and six high.  To convey a better idea of the size and exposed situation of the nests of these birds, I may state that on low parts of the coast, they were often used as surveying marks.  This projection, which we called Eagle Point, is of a siliceous sandstone formation, intersected by nearly vertical veins of quartz, and forms a spur thrown off from a high range four miles to the south-eastward.  We did not find any water in the few miles of country traversed in the course of the afternoon, yet everything wore a rich green appearance, and the scenery in some of the dells we crossed, was very picturesque, and quite alive with birds and insects; flights of many-coloured parakeets swept by with a rapidity that resembled the rushing sound of a passing gust of wind.  Among the trees, I noticed for the first time the Banksia, common in Western Australia; Mr. Cunningham, the botanist who accompanied Captain King, did not consider its indigenous empire extended to the North-West coast.  Of the other kinds, and which complete all the variety we observed on this part of the continent, were the mimosa, acacia, papyrus, and two sorts of Eucalyptus; there were also several plants of the order Leguminosae.

(Footnote.  Figured in Mr. Gould’s work on the Birds of Australia as Ichthyiaetus leucogaster.)

THE SEABREEZE.

We had a breeze throughout the entire day, from North-East till 1 o’clock, then West-North-West till near midnight; this westerly or seabreeze, reached us within ten minutes of the time it did yesterday, a regularity we found to prevail the few days we spent on this part of the coast.  The tide (being near the spring) fell in the night 36 feet, leaving the greater part of the bay dry at low-water.  Our observations for latitude placed Eagle Point in 16 degrees 10 1/4 minutes south.